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arts · Monday 17 August 2026 · Various 
Slip Hall Summer Camp - Celbridge
At Slip Hall, Castletown House · Celbridge, Co. Kildare
At Slip Hall, Castletown House · Celbridge, Co. Kildare
A week of painting, making, and messing about with materials in one of Kildare’s most atmospheric community spaces - that is the Slip Hall Summer Camp in a sentence. Run by The Craft Corner, a children’s art provider with a strong track record in Celbridge, this five-day camp takes place at the Slip Hall on the gates of the Castletown House estate. It suits children roughly aged 4 to 12, with the programme split into a junior group (ages 4 to 6) and an older group (ages 7 to 12), so the activities are genuinely pitched at each age rather than lumped together.
Each day runs from 10am to 2pm and covers a different set of projects. Across the week children work through painting experiments, nature-inspired artwork, 3D construction crafts, and drawing skills practice. There is also time set aside for free crafting - a session where children pick their own project and follow their own ideas, which tends to be a highlight for the more independently-minded kids. Group numbers are capped at around 26-28 per camp, which keeps the setting genuinely small and means tutors can give individual attention rather than just supervising. The Slip Hall itself is a solid stone community and parish hall right at the estate gates - an old building with plenty of character, and a step up from a school gym as a place to spend a summer week.
Celbridge sits on the R403, roughly 20km west of Dublin city centre along the Liffey valley. From Dublin, the most direct route is via the M4/N4 and then south on the R403 at Leixlip. Bus Eireann and Dublin Bus serve the town with connections from Citywest and the city centre - the 67 and 67X routes run fairly regularly and stop centrally in Celbridge. Castletown House is well signposted from the town, and the Slip Hall sits right at the main gates on Castletown Road. There is roadside parking near the gates, and the broader Castletown estate car park is a short walk away.
Dropping children at camp gives you a free morning to walk the Castletown estate - the grounds are open to the public and the house itself, Ireland’s largest Palladian mansion, can be visited through the OPW. The town has a handful of cafes along the main street worth an hour over coffee. There is more to see in Celbridge and across Co. Kildare.
Heading to Slip Hall, Castletown House in Celbridge? Kildare has plenty more to see. Read the Celbridge area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.